KATHY AYCOCK: Take care when trying to can food at home

SAN ANGELO, Texas - An abundance of home-grown fruits and vegetables often triggers the desire to can foods at home. While this can be a fun and rewarding way to keep foods long after the season ends, care must be taken to ensure that foods canned at home are safe to eat.

Following research-based methods and using tested recipes are just things to consider when canning foods at home. Not all recipes for home canning have been tested for safety. Sources of tested recipes include the National Center for Home Food Preservation (http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/), USDA and manufacturers of home canning equipment and supplies. Recipes from cookbooks and the Internet may not be the best choices.

Using the right equipment when canning also is important. Some foods can be preserved using a water bath canner but others must be processed in a pressure canner. If the right canning method is not used, the finished product could make people very sick.

Also, make sure the equipment you have is in good working order. Experts advise that dial gauges on pressure canners be tested annually to make sure they are accurate. In addition, canners should be checked to make sure they are in good working order.

There are many other aspects to canning that one needs to consider, including jar size, head space and recommended processing (canning) times. All these can influence the safety of the final product.

The last thing we want to do is tell someone that the food they have just spent hours canning has to be thrown away or redone. However, if one did not use a tested recipe, if unsealed jars were not identified within 24 hours after canning or if jars were not processed properly (i.e., using a water bath canner instead of a pressure canner) we may have no other choice.